Moving an Online Pedigree to a Personal Database

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This week's lesson is an important one considering how many personal data bases there are now and how suddenly we may have quite a few online trees we are creating like Family Search, Ancestry, My Heritage, Find My Past, etc.  

The reason we want more than one tree online is that they contain different record availability and other features for helping us compile one nearly perfect database of our own.  One where we take personal responsibility for researching and providing good sources and citations.  That is the set of records we keep on our own personal computer so that it cannot be changed by anyone else.  We are satisfied we have done our level best to make it accurate.  Then we save it to various places so it will not be lost.

In the library we recommend that patrons choose a personal data base like Ancestral Quest, Legacy, Roots Magic, Family Tree Maker, Reunion, etc.  We don't want them to rely solely on Family Trees kept only online because they're are not proven yet and in the case of FS/FT it is editable by other people.  

Once they have selected a software program like those mentioned above for their home computer, they nearly always have questions like, "How do I get my tree information into my new personal database? I don't have to retype all of it do I?"  The chart in the lesson provided below gives some suggestions from information coming out of Ancestry and Family Search.  These are the most commonly used web based sites used by our patrons.

From Bonnie: "Lesson #38. Moving online Pedigree to a Personal Database." Click here to view (Bonnie shared these files using Dropbox. Enjoy!) One additional thing that I thought of as I was getting this lesson ready. Wouldn't be great if we had everyone start to get things online by beginning a FS Family Tree right away.  The thought of eliminating all the binders full of unorganized papers is so appealing. It is so much better to help someone that has their information on The Tree.  I know we will always have things on paper but helping someone with an organized beginning pedigree really helps doesn't it? Then getting a great pedigree started on a private database should be a breeze.  They'll have a better understanding of why they need it when they know how the online trees actually work. Thank you, Linda!